Charlie McAvoy compares James Hagens’ ATO situation to himself and Zach Werenski

At this point, I've made my opinion on the James Hagens ATO with Providence very clear. Everyone who is blowing it out of proportion is forgetting that Charlie McAvoy and David Pastrnak followed the same path, and their Boston Bruins careers worked out just fine. While I was trying to find Boston comparisons, McAvoy dropped a comparison on his Spittin' Chiclets appearance that makes even more sense.

McAvoy was talking about himself in the clip, which might not have been clear because the situation he describes sounds eerily similar to Hagens'. It also offers a little inside baseball to what the Bruins' front office could be thinking about with their top prospect, as this year's Providence team is also looking like a Calder Cup favorite, and the NHL team is one of the league's top teams recently, and they might not want to mess up the mojo.

"Zach Werenski went to Michigan and left the year before [me], so he did two years in school, left for an ATO with Lake Erie, and playoffs, AHL the whole time, wins the Calder Cup, and then next year, contributor, came right in and was great. So it was like, we've seen this model, it worked great for him. They got a good team in Providence, you go down, start out there, get your touches, and it was really similar to this where Boston was fighting for the playoffs. "

Charlie McAvoy

If what McAvoy is saying is true, it looks like the Bruins' preference for him would've been to play the entire postseason in Providence and not join Boston until the following season, following the Werenski model. If you remember correctly, when McAvoy came to Boston in the postseason that year, it was because injuries forced the front office's hand to give him a chance.

It ended up working out for McAvoy in the end, but Don Sweeney might've liked to see that first year end up a little differently. It is a different situation given that McAvoy and Werenski were similar defensemen coming out of college and Hagens is a scoring forward, but it looks like Sweeney is using a mulligan here and attempting the same strategy with him.

The story that the organization sold to McAvoy was a good one. Given that Hagens seems content to follow this plan and do the ATO in Providence, it seems like they might've sold the same thing to him.